People who bought this also bought...

Homage to Catalonia

By:
George Orwell

Narrated by:
Frederick Davidson

Length: 8 hrs and 25 mins

Unabridged

Overall

458

Performance

378

Story

374

In 1936, George Orwell went to Spain to report on the civil war and instead joined the P.O.U.M. militia to fight against the Fascists. In this now justly famous account of his experience, he describes both the bleak and the comic aspects of trench warfare on the Aragon front, the Barcelona uprising in May 1937, his nearly fatal wounding just two weeks later, and his escape from Barcelona into France after the P.O.U.M. was suppressed.

Excellent book, marred by narration

By
Kirby
on
02-02-13

Grant

By:
Ron Chernow

Narrated by:
Mark Bramhall

Length: 48 hrs and 1 min

Unabridged

Overall

1,939

Performance

1,778

Story

1,767

Ulysses S. Grant's life has typically been misunderstood. All too often he is caricatured as a chronic loser and an inept businessman or as the triumphant but brutal Union general of the Civil War. But these stereotypes don't come close to capturing him, as Chernow sows in his masterful biography, the first to provide a complete understanding of the general and president whose fortunes rose and fell with dizzying speed and frequency.

Excellent Book (BUT WHERE IS THE PDF FILES)????

By
Amazon Customer
on
10-25-17

Lenin

The Man, the Dictator, and the Master of Terror

By:
Victor Sebestyen

Narrated by:
Jonathan Aris

Length: 20 hrs and 2 mins

Unabridged

Overall

76

Performance

71

Story

70

Drawing on new research, including the diaries, memoirs, and personal letters of both Lenin and his friends, Victor Sebestyen's unique biography - the first in English in nearly two decades - is not only a political examination of one of the most important historical figures of the 20th century but a portrait of Lenin the man. Unexpectedly, Lenin was someone who loved nature, hunting, and fishing and could identify hundreds of species of plants, a despotic ruler whose closest ties and friendships were with women.

Excellent Bio of a Key Figure of the 20th Century

By
Richard L. Rubin
on
11-22-17

Leonardo da Vinci

By:
Walter Isaacson

Narrated by:
Alfred Molina

Length: 17 hrs and 1 min

Unabridged

Overall

3,016

Performance

2,732

Story

2,700

Leonardo da Vinci created the two most famous paintings in history,
The Last Supper and the
Mona Lisa. But in his own mind, he was just as much a man of science and engineering. With a passion that sometimes became obsessive, he pursued innovative studies of anatomy, fossils, birds, the heart, flying machines, botany, geology, and weaponry.

Genius Adrift

By
J.B.
on
10-26-17

The Road Not Taken

Edward Lansdale and the American Tragedy in Vietnam

By:
Max Boot

Narrated by:
Henry Strozier

Length: 27 hrs and 33 mins

Unabridged

Overall

30

Performance

26

Story

26

In chronicling the adventurous life of legendary CIA operative Edward Lansdale,
The Road Not Taken definitively reframes our understanding of the Vietnam War. In this epic biography of Edward Lansdale (1908-1987) best-selling historian Max Boot demonstrates how Lansdale pioneered a "hearts and mind" diplomacy, first in the Philippines, then in Vietnam. It was a visionary policy that, as Boot reveals, was ultimately crushed by America's giant military bureaucracy.

An honest look at Vietnam Nam and USA

By
Catherine
on
01-16-18

Stalin, Volume I

Paradoxes of Power, 1878-1928

By:
Stephen Kotkin

Narrated by:
Paul Hecht

Length: 38 hrs and 47 mins

Unabridged

Overall

260

Performance

230

Story

230

Volume One of
Stalin begins and ends in January 1928 as Stalin boards a train bound for Siberia, about to embark upon the greatest gamble of his political life. He is now the ruler of the largest country in the world, but a poor and backward one, far behind the great capitalist countries in industrial and military power, encircled on all sides. In Siberia, Stalin conceives of the largest program of social reengineering ever attempted.

Excellent Book But First Time Listener Beware

By
IRP
on
03-23-15

Homage to Catalonia

By:
George Orwell

Narrated by:
Frederick Davidson

Length: 8 hrs and 25 mins

Unabridged

Overall

458

Performance

378

Story

374

In 1936, George Orwell went to Spain to report on the civil war and instead joined the P.O.U.M. militia to fight against the Fascists. In this now justly famous account of his experience, he describes both the bleak and the comic aspects of trench warfare on the Aragon front, the Barcelona uprising in May 1937, his nearly fatal wounding just two weeks later, and his escape from Barcelona into France after the P.O.U.M. was suppressed.

Excellent book, marred by narration

By
Kirby
on
02-02-13

Grant

By:
Ron Chernow

Narrated by:
Mark Bramhall

Length: 48 hrs and 1 min

Unabridged

Overall

1,939

Performance

1,778

Story

1,767

Ulysses S. Grant's life has typically been misunderstood. All too often he is caricatured as a chronic loser and an inept businessman or as the triumphant but brutal Union general of the Civil War. But these stereotypes don't come close to capturing him, as Chernow sows in his masterful biography, the first to provide a complete understanding of the general and president whose fortunes rose and fell with dizzying speed and frequency.

Excellent Book (BUT WHERE IS THE PDF FILES)????

By
Amazon Customer
on
10-25-17

Lenin

The Man, the Dictator, and the Master of Terror

By:
Victor Sebestyen

Narrated by:
Jonathan Aris

Length: 20 hrs and 2 mins

Unabridged

Overall

76

Performance

71

Story

70

Drawing on new research, including the diaries, memoirs, and personal letters of both Lenin and his friends, Victor Sebestyen's unique biography - the first in English in nearly two decades - is not only a political examination of one of the most important historical figures of the 20th century but a portrait of Lenin the man. Unexpectedly, Lenin was someone who loved nature, hunting, and fishing and could identify hundreds of species of plants, a despotic ruler whose closest ties and friendships were with women.

Excellent Bio of a Key Figure of the 20th Century

By
Richard L. Rubin
on
11-22-17

Leonardo da Vinci

By:
Walter Isaacson

Narrated by:
Alfred Molina

Length: 17 hrs and 1 min

Unabridged

Overall

3,016

Performance

2,732

Story

2,700

Leonardo da Vinci created the two most famous paintings in history,
The Last Supper and the
Mona Lisa. But in his own mind, he was just as much a man of science and engineering. With a passion that sometimes became obsessive, he pursued innovative studies of anatomy, fossils, birds, the heart, flying machines, botany, geology, and weaponry.

Genius Adrift

By
J.B.
on
10-26-17

The Road Not Taken

Edward Lansdale and the American Tragedy in Vietnam

By:
Max Boot

Narrated by:
Henry Strozier

Length: 27 hrs and 33 mins

Unabridged

Overall

30

Performance

26

Story

26

In chronicling the adventurous life of legendary CIA operative Edward Lansdale,
The Road Not Taken definitively reframes our understanding of the Vietnam War. In this epic biography of Edward Lansdale (1908-1987) best-selling historian Max Boot demonstrates how Lansdale pioneered a "hearts and mind" diplomacy, first in the Philippines, then in Vietnam. It was a visionary policy that, as Boot reveals, was ultimately crushed by America's giant military bureaucracy.

An honest look at Vietnam Nam and USA

By
Catherine
on
01-16-18

Stalin, Volume I

Paradoxes of Power, 1878-1928

By:
Stephen Kotkin

Narrated by:
Paul Hecht

Length: 38 hrs and 47 mins

Unabridged

Overall

260

Performance

230

Story

230

Volume One of
Stalin begins and ends in January 1928 as Stalin boards a train bound for Siberia, about to embark upon the greatest gamble of his political life. He is now the ruler of the largest country in the world, but a poor and backward one, far behind the great capitalist countries in industrial and military power, encircled on all sides. In Siberia, Stalin conceives of the largest program of social reengineering ever attempted.

Excellent Book But First Time Listener Beware

By
IRP
on
03-23-15

American Military History: From Colonials to Counterinsurgents

By:
The Great Courses

Narrated by:
General Wesley K. Clark

Length: 11 hrs and 29 mins

Original Recording

Overall

1

Performance

1

Story

1

Wars have played a crucial role in defining the United States and its place in the world. No one is better equipped to analyze this subject in depth than retired US Army Gen. Wesley K. Clark - decorated combat veteran, author, Rhodes Scholar, and former NATO Supreme Commander. In this course, Gen. Clark explores the full scope of America's armed conflicts, from the French and Indian War in the mid-18th century to the Global War on Terrorism in the 21st.

The Generals: American Military Command from World War II to Today

By:
Thomas E. Ricks

Narrated by:
William Hughes

Length: 15 hrs and 51 mins

Unabridged

Overall

496

Performance

424

Story

419

A widening gulf between performance and accountability has caused history to be kinder to the American generals of World War II than to those of later wars. In
The Generals we meet leaders from World War II to the present who rose to the occasion - and those who failed.

Provocative

By
Jean
on
04-30-15

How Democracies Die

By:
Steven Levitsky,
Daniel Ziblatt

Narrated by:
Fred Sanders

Length: 8 hrs and 24 mins

Unabridged

Overall

208

Performance

182

Story

183

Donald Trump's presidency has raised a question that many of us never thought we'd be asking: Is our democracy in danger? Harvard professors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt have spent more than twenty years studying the breakdown of democracies in Europe and Latin America, and they believe the answer is yes. Democracy no longer ends with a bang--in a revolution or military coup--but with a whimper: the slow, steady weakening of critical institutions, such as the judiciary and the press, and the gradual erosion of long-standing political norms.

Must-read for anyone interested in fundamental political science in the context of current day western world

By
Jo Uthus
on
02-03-18

Fire and Fury

Inside the Trump White House

By:
Michael Wolff

Narrated by:
Michael Wolff,
Holter Graham

Length: 11 hrs and 55 mins

Unabridged

Overall

14,490

Performance

12,958

Story

12,880

With extraordinary access to the West Wing, Michael Wolff reveals what happened behind-the-scenes in the first nine months of the most controversial presidency of our time in Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House. Since Donald Trump was sworn in as the 45th President of the United States, the country—and the world—has witnessed a stormy, outrageous, and absolutely mesmerizing presidential term that reflects the volatility and fierceness of the man elected Commander-in-Chief.

Not as credible as one would like.

By
Jerry R. Nokes Jr.
on
01-29-18

The Future Is History

How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia

By:
Masha Gessen

Narrated by:
Masha Gessen

Length: 16 hrs and 45 mins

Unabridged

Overall

202

Performance

185

Story

187

Hailed for her "fearless indictment of the most powerful man in Russia" (
TheWall Street Journal), award-winning journalist Masha Gessen is unparalleled in her understanding of the events and forces that have wracked her native country in recent times. In
The Future Is History, she follows the lives of four people born at what promised to be the dawn of democracy. Each came of age with unprecedented expectations, some as the children and grandchildren of the very architects of the new Russia, each with newfound aspirations of their own.

The author is an international treasure

By
ThreeGems
on
10-16-17

Young Radicals

In the War for American Ideals

By:
Jeremy McCarter

Narrated by:
Jeremy McCarter

Length: 11 hrs and 10 mins

Unabridged

Overall

21

Performance

19

Story

19

Where do we find our ideals? What does it mean to live for them - and to risk dying for them? For Americans during World War I, these weren't abstract questions. Young Radicals tells the story of five activists, intellectuals, and troublemakers who agitated for freedom and equality in the hopeful years before the war, then fought to defend those values in a country pitching into violence and chaos.

Churchill's Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare

The Mavericks Who Plotted Hitler's Defeat

By:
Giles Milton

Narrated by:
Giles Milton

Length: 12 hrs and 38 mins

Unabridged

Overall

249

Performance

230

Story

230

In the spring of 1939, a top-secret organization was founded in London: Its purpose was to plot the destruction of Hitler's war machine through spectacular acts of sabotage. The guerrilla campaign that followed was every bit as extraordinary as the six men who directed it. One of them, Cecil Clarke, was a maverick engineer who had spent the 1930s inventing futuristic caravans. Now his talents were put to more devious use: He built the dirty bomb used to assassinate Hitler's favorite, Reinhard Heydrich.

Outstanding tale of daring-do & brilliant mindsI

By
lajk218
on
03-12-17

Fantasyland

How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History

By:
Kurt Andersen

Narrated by:
Kurt Andersen

Length: 19 hrs and 35 mins

Unabridged

Overall

1,067

Performance

949

Story

940

A razor-sharp thinker offers a new understanding of our post-truth world and explains the American instinct to believe in make-believe, from the Pilgrims to P. T. Barnum to Disneyland to zealots of every stripe...to Donald Trump. In this sweeping, eloquent history of America, Kurt Andersen demonstrates that what's happening in our country today - this strange, post-factual, "fake news" moment we're all living through - is not something entirely new, but rather the ultimate expression of our national character and path.

Great book, but...

By
Synthpulse
on
11-15-17

Empire

How Britain Made the Modern World

By:
Niall Ferguson

Narrated by:
Jonathan Keeble

Length: 16 hrs and 11 mins

Unabridged

Overall

108

Performance

97

Story

97

Once vast swathes of the globe were coloured imperial red, and Britannia ruled not just the waves but the prairies of America, the plains of Asia, the jungles of Africa and the deserts of Arabia. Just how did a small, rainy island in the North Atlantic achieve all this? And why did the empire on which the sun literally never set finally decline and fall? Niall Ferguson's acclaimed
Empire brilliantly unfolds the imperial story in all its splendours and its miseries.

Such a great listen - What a History Lesson

By
Dorothy
on
11-04-17

Devil's Bargain

Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Nationalist Uprising

By:
Joshua Green

Narrated by:
Fred Sanders

Length: 8 hrs and 3 mins

Unabridged

Overall

1,360

Performance

1,201

Story

1,198

From the reporter who was there at the very beginning comes the revealing inside story of the partnership between Steve Bannon and Donald Trump - the key to understanding the rise of the alt-right, the fall of Hillary Clinton, and the hidden forces that drove the greatest upset in American political history.

Bannon elects Trump

By
Charles P. Oconnor
on
09-08-17

Destined for War

Can America and China Escape Thucydides's Trap?

By:
Graham Allison

Narrated by:
Richard Ferrone

Length: 12 hrs and 43 mins

Unabridged

Overall

212

Performance

192

Story

191

War with China is much more likely than anyone thinks. When Athens went to war with Sparta some 2,500 years ago, the Greek historian Thucydides identified one simple cause: A rising power threatened to displace a ruling one. As the eminent Harvard scholar Graham Allison explains, in the past 500 years, great powers have found themselves in "Thucydides's Trap" 16 times. In 12 of the 16, the results have been catastrophic.

Balances, Counter-Balances and Traps

By
Joyce U. Olewe
on
10-09-17

Friends Divided

John Adams and Thomas Jefferson

By:
Gordon S. Wood

Narrated by:
James Lurie

Length: 17 hrs and 50 mins

Unabridged

Overall

66

Performance

61

Story

61

Thomas Jefferson and John Adams could scarcely have come from more different worlds or been more different in temperament. Jefferson, the optimist with enough faith in the innate goodness of his fellow man to be democracy's champion, was an aristocratic Southern slave owner while Adams, the overachiever from New England's rising middling classes, painfully aware he was no aristocrat, was a skeptic about popular rule and a defender of a more elitist view of government.

A Great Read

By
Jean
on
12-22-17

Publisher's Summary

From New York Times best-selling author Thomas E. Ricks, a dual biography of Winston Churchill and George Orwell, whose farsighted vision and inspired action preserved democracy from the threats of authoritarianism, from the left and right alike.

Both George Orwell and Winston Churchill came close to death in the mid-1930s - Orwell shot in the neck in a trench line in the Spanish Civil War and Churchill struck by a car in New York City. If they'd died then, history would scarcely remember them. At the time Churchill was a politician on the outs, his loyalty to his class and party suspect. Orwell was a mildly successful novelist, to put it generously. No one would have predicted that by the end of the 20th century, they would be considered two of the most important people in British history for having the vision and courage to campaign tirelessly, in words and in deeds, against the totalitarian threat from both the left and the right. In a crucial moment, they responded first by seeking the facts of the matter, seeing through the lies and obfuscations, and then they acted on their beliefs. Together, to an extent not sufficiently appreciated, they kept the West's compass set toward freedom as its due north.

It's not easy to recall now how lonely a position each man once occupied. By the late 1930s, democracy was discredited in many circles, and authoritarian rulers were everywhere in the ascent. There were some who decried the scourge of communism but saw in Hitler and Mussolini "men we could do business with", if not in fact saviors. And there were others who saw the Nazi and fascist threat as malign but tended to view communism as the path to salvation. Churchill and Orwell, on the other hand, had the foresight to see clearly that the issue was human freedom - that whatever its coloration, a government that denied its people basic freedoms was a totalitarian menace and had to be resisted.

In the end Churchill and Orwell proved their age's necessary men. The glorious climax of Churchill and Orwell is the work they both did in the decade of the 1940s to triumph over freedom's enemies. And though Churchill played the larger role in the defeat of Hitler and the Axis, Orwell's reckoning with the menace of authoritarian rule in Animal Farm and 1984 would define the stakes of the Cold War for its 50-year course and continues to give inspiration to fighters for freedom to this day. Taken together, in Thomas E. Ricks' masterful hands, their lives are a beautiful testament to the power of moral conviction and to the courage it can take to stay true to it through thick and thin.

Story

Elegantly Written

I have read so many books by or about Churchill that a new book must have a new approach or hook or else I will not be bothered to read it. This one did.

Both George Orwell and Winston S. Churchill came close to death. Both men faced an existential crisis to their way of life with moral courage. They also demonstrated that an individual can make a difference. These two men were different in many ways. They came from different social classes but each could think and write clearly. Both men were committed to critical thought and neither followed the crowd.

Both men were in disgrace in the 1930s. Churchill was a political pariah, alienated from the Conservative Party by his opposition to the appeasement of Hitler. Orwell wrote “Homage to Catalone” in 1938. It was a coruscating indictment of both left and right during the Spanish Civil War. He was denounced by many and his publisher refused to continue to publish the book. After the war broke out in 1939, Churchill and Orwell found common cause.

Both men thought honesty and language mattered at every level. Ricks tells of Churchill, over burdened with the war of survival, paused to coach subordinates on writing. He issued a directive to brevity, ordering his staff to write in short crisp paragraphs and to avoid meaningless phrases. In Orwell’s famous six elementary rules on writing, he includes “never us a long word where a short one will do”.

The book is well written and meticulously researched. Ricks made some comparisons with current politicians. I found the stories about the men most interesting.

The book is ten hours long. James Lurie does a great job narrating the book. Lurie is an actor, voice over artist and audiobook narrator.

Disparate

Churchill and Orwell: The Fight for Freedom, by Thomas E. Ricks, and narrated By James Lurie. journalist and author who specializes in the military and national security issues. I am always thrilled when he is interviewed on TV as his insights are reveling; he defines the issue, provides the necessary facts and draws conclusions that are not obvious but seeded in the circumstance and fully analyzes the abnormality or impairment being discussed. I have previously read his works, Fiasco, history of the Iraq War from the planning phase to combat operations and The Gamble, the succeeding years in Iraq, to 2008. Insightful and a must read to understand the quagmire of the present war taking place in Iraq and beyond or the damage done to this earth in establishing the nations as was done at the end of World War I.

Okay, so one gets it; I praise Mr. Ricks’ works. Not here, though in Churchill and Orwell. We are talking about Winston Churchill, the British Prime Minister in WW II and George Orwell, the author of Animal Farm and 1984. One wants to believe that Mr. Ricks was planning two long essays on each, had a book obligation and smashed the two together to meet his obligation. Why not, as both men were British – albeit of almost diametrically opposed attitudes.

The book’s purpose, per the publisher, is a work on how those men preserved democracy from the threats of authoritarianism. It has nothing to do with explaining despotism. It is simply a short biography of each man. In that sense, it is very well done and easy to listen too. Yet, unlike, the above-named works of Ricks, does not provide the same insight into political history and trends. It is a non-sequitur, short biography of each man. As that it is fairly good.

The book, tells each man’s history, from birth through their appearance in the mid-1930s and who each became factors in European society. Each proved to be courageous as each demonstrated by going to war, in Churchill’s situation WWI, and Orwell in the Spanish Civil War. Each had reverence for the lower social societies . . . and more about thier lives.

As a comparative study the matching of the two individuals is unsuccessful. Separate from the matching of the two for a comparative study, which fails, it is an interesting history of each man and their philosophy of dictatorship and how it must be resisted.

Best Listen of the New Year

A fascinating slight overreach

A dual superficial biography about two towering figures in British history who didn't have much in common. Churchill lived a life of excess while Orwell lived a life that was full of struggle and setbacks. Orwell was not well known while he was alive while Churchill was a public figure for close to five decades. Orwell is now considered one of the greatest authors of the 20th century but the author's judgement of what his effect is goes too far in its assessment practically crediting with how everyone lives their lives today. It is worth your time but the conclusions go too far for my tastes

I expected more

Yes, not based on this one, but because I know Ricks to be a sharp and informed observer. He is a smooth writer.

Any additional comments?

I expected some connection to be drawn between the two men, but not so. Chapters alternate between Orwell did this, Churchill did that. Interesting as is, good (but selective and limited) historical detail, but I ended up asking, So what?

Doesn't deliver what it promises.

the book is a poor biography of either Churchill or Orwell, and never actually gets into what the title of the book is about. At the end the author gives his own political views of what Churchill and Orwell would think of political situations today which is completely unnecessary and based on his own political leanings. not worth the read, just pick up a biography of Churchill or Orwell and avoid this book.